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Afro-Brazilian Inclusion in the World Cup and Olympic Games

November 16, 2011

In the next few years, Brazil will host two major world sporting events, the World Cup (2014) and the Olympic Games (2016).

Beyond putting the country on the international stage and increasing the number of tourists and investors, the big question is what will be the real impact of these events in improving the living conditions of the majority of Brazilians. With this in mind, the Special Secretariat for Policies to Promote Racial Equality (SEPPIR), with support from the U.S. Consulate in Brazil, organized a series of events inviting representatives of social organizations and governments to look at how best to include Afro-Brazilians in the preparations for the games.

One of the concerns of SEPPIR, a ministry of the federal government, is the fact that the Afro-Brazilian population has historically not been a part of the process of economic inclusion—the result of more than 300 years of slavery and a lack of economic inclusion policies. Social movement activists point out that it is very likely that most Afro-Brazilians will not benefit from the opportunities of the games, even though Brazil is attracting significant public and private investments.

According to the ministry of labor, the difference between the average earnings of blacks and whites in Brazil is 46.4 percent. In addition, a publication by the National Association of Collective Afro-Brazilian Entrepreneurs titled "The Black Entrepreneur" reveals that only 3.8 percent of Afro-Brazilians are positioned to be entrepreneurs.

In meetings held in Salvador, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, experts discussed ways to increase racial equality. As part of this, former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin gave a talk on "Promoting Entrepreneurship and Racial Inclusion: The Case of the Atlanta Olympics."

Like Salvador, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Atlanta is a city with a large concentration of people of African descent. In the U.S. case, through changes in legislation, it was possible to ensure that African-Americans had access to service contracts during the Olympic Games in 1996; this generated good results and broad access to the economic benefits of hosting the games.

According to the ministry of tourism, the government of Brazil must invest at least 30 billion reais in public infrastructure for the games. It expects 500,000 tourists to come for the World Cup—about 10 percent of what Brazil generally receives in an entire year.

In an exclusive interview with Portal Mail Nago, the mayor of Atlanta said that the Olympic Games and World Cup are "a great opportunity for young people to be trained and to get better education and jobs." But the key is to have a plan with clear objectives.

Other ideas discussed as part of these recent seminars was the need to enhance and strengthen small businesses managed by the Afro-Brazilian community. For the governor of Bahia, one of the headquarters of the World Cup in 2014, the games present a unique opportunity: "as well as investments in infrastructure and public facilities, we have to take the Cup to work on other areas such as the promotion of equality, especially in a place like Bahia, which has the most people of African descent outside Africa "

The seminars about the Olympics is part of the Plan of Action for U.S.-Brazil Joint Promotion of Racial and Ethnic Equality (Japeri) and are integrated into the actions of the International Year of African Descent.